How to Improve Your Old Content: 8 Easy Steps to Renew Older Posts & Articles

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One of the very worst things you can do in terms of SEO is to neglect old posts. You see, instead of spending all of your time writing new content, you should be splitting your time so as to improve old posts while simultaneously creating new articles.

And while this can be a difficult balance to strike in the beginning, it’s well worth the pay off in the end. For example, better overall content on your site can help increase search traffic, as well as giving yourself more authority in the field. Here are eight easy steps to renew and improve your old content!

Simply add more useful content

First things first: let’s start with the basics! When you first start your blog, you’re likely also learning to write for the internet for the first time. As a result, you may well struggle to find your words, or more specifically ‘your voice’. However, as time goes on, you’ll find it easier and easier to write and so when you return to your older posts, you’ll notice things that you should probably have included before.

Refresh your images

Perhaps your photography has vastly improved. Maybe you’ve realised that your pins are completely the wrong dimensions (by the way, your pins for Pinterest should be 600 x 900 going forward!). Whatever the case, you’ll likely not only want to improve the text on your older articles, but also the images which accompany them. After all, a large part of your user experience is all about the content presentation- or conscious content creation as Karen likes to call it!

Add more (relevant) keywords

When you started your blog, you probably didn’t have a keyword research tool. And if you still have one now, then it’s totally time to invest! When updating old articles, approach looking for keywords as if you’re looking to create a whole new post. This way, you’ll be more creative when it comes to finding words. Want to know more? Here’s a quick guide to using Keysearch!

Add proper headings and format posts correctly

We’ve all been there. In the beginning, no one (and I mean, literally no one) is good at formatting posts. When it comes to formatting posts, you’ll want clear images, an easy to read font, and proper headings. And that’s just the beginning.

If there’s one thing you make it your mission to do each day (a small blogging task, as it were) be sure to return to your older posts and add headings in between big blocks of text. As a general rule, there should be no more than 300 words under each header. Sentences should be clear and easy to read, while pictures make the post more visually appealing.

Add ALT descriptions to your images

If headings are one of the most important aspects of your writing (I mean, this way people can skim the page to find what they want quickly), ALT tags are literally the most important part of your image. Yes, in some cases, they’re even more important than the image itself!

ALT tags tell search engines what your image is all about and make your posts more accessible to those using screen readers. Want to know how to create image tags and optimise your images for SEO? Here’s our full guide on how to write ALT tags the correct way.

Create links between your posts

When you first start your blog, you’ll have no content! However, as time goes on, you’ll have more content to which you can naturally link within your articles. Adding contextual links to your other posts not only aids with SEO (as it gives clear indicators to search engines that two posts are related), but it also decreases bounce rate as your readers will soon find other articles on your site that they want to read.

Add proper spacing between paragraphs

So many of us are guilty of writing big blocks of text.  At the time, it feels natural. However, it can hurt your SEO as most people don’t want to read big text blocks for important information and so are more likely to click off your site.  Our eyes prefer being able to jump between things and to be able to read more easily.

You’ll find that people are more likely to stay on your page longer and have a better experience if you space every couple sentences. In terms of proper spacing between paragraphs, when you start to monetise your content with ads (should you opt to go down this route), proper spacing will allow you to properly optimise and increase metrics such as RPMs.

Encourage a dialogue at the end of your post

Comments help further increase your chance to rank in search engines by allowing people to add discussions (and therefore further keywords and synonyms for your keywords) which you may not have even thought of yourself. In some cases, comment threads can become so long that they actually outnumber the number of words in the original post.

However, as long as these comments don’t include any strange links, a dialogue at the end of your article in the comment section can only be a good thing for your readers and your search engine ranking! And with that, this article is done. Tell me: what step would you add to this list for easily renewing old posts?

(See what I did there!)